A number of devices exist in the education and gaming fields, some of which use random or sequential selection of items or participants to be selected.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,996 to Stoner is applicable to the selection of a group member on demand by a group controller. However, Stoner's device does not mention keeping track of a random sequence of selections that ensures each group member is called on exactly once.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,276 to Darby discloses a game device for randomly selecting players.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,204,671 to Kronberg enables random sampling of items from a continuous series, such as during the movement of people past a country's customs booth.
None of the known prior art devices is capable of selecting members of a group in a variety of ways, including by random selection, and yet is small, easy to use, and adaptable to different requirements.
Accordingly, there is a need for a simple portable device that a teacher or game controller can use to select a member of a group at random, or to select each member of a group once in sequence, or to select each member of a group in a random sequence.
Especially in this age where great emphasis is placed on overcoming human bias in the classroom and other settings, a device according to the invention is an important contribution. Further, such an inventive device enables a teacher to adjust to different situations including random selection, sequential selection, or random sequence selection.
Throughout the specification, the meanings of the following terms is as follows:
"Selection at random" refers to selection of a member from a group in a purely random fashion; e.g., if there are five members in a group, the following selection could result from five members chosen in turn, for a total of ten turns: 3,1,5,5,4,2,1,4,4,3;
"Selecting a member in sequence" means that a predetermined selection sequence of a member of a group is followed: e.g., if one selected from a group of five members, for a total of ten turns, the followings sequence could result: 2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1; and
"In random sequence" means that the order of selection of a member from a group is random, yet there is no repeated selection of a member from a group until each member of the group has been selected once; e.g., the following random sequence could result from selecting in random sequence from a group of five members, ten times: 5,3,2,4,1,5,3,2,4,1; in addition, it is contemplated that the sequence itself not be repeated, for example, when a member is chosen from a group of five members, for a total of ten turns, the following sequence could result: 4,3,2,5,1,3,2,5,4,1.
It will be appreciated that these are merely broad examples, and additional details of sequencing will be explained below.